The Impact of Drooling on the Quality of Life in Children with Cerebral Palsy

• Main Authors: Chang, Shih-Chung, 張時中
• Other Authors: Lin, Chin-Kai
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/99161690958565121634

碩士 === 國立臺中教育大學 === 早期療育研究所 === 99 === There were many factors including motor, cognition, language and social impairments that would interfere with the quality of life (QOL) of children with cerebral palsy. Although the prevalence of drooling was high in children with cerebral palsy, there were only a few articles regarding its impacts on the quality of life in cerebral palsy children. In this study there were 36 cerebral palsy children aged from 2 to 6 years old, whose drooling condition were evaluated with “Drooling Rating Scale”, with PedsQL 4.0 core inventory for their QOL and with “Developmental Screening Test for 0-6 Years Old Children” for their developmental status. The results in this study showed the prevalence of drooling in cerebral palsy with 69.4%, and their age and gender were not correlated with the levels of drooling and QOL. The drooling frequencies were higher in children with tetraplegia than children with diplegia, but there were no significant difference in drooling severity between these children. The physical health summary score and the mean score of QOL were lower in tetraplegic children, but there was no significant difference with diplegic children in psychosocial health summary score. Those children who drooled showed lower level in physical health summary score, psychosocial health summary score and the mean score of QOL than those who were not. The drooling severity and drooling frequency were negatively correlated with the three dimension of the QOL, but the stepwise regression showed that gross motor development and drooling frequency had best predictive power over physical health summary score, and the language development had best predictive power over psychosocial health summary score and mean score of QOL. Due to there were multicollinarity between these variances, the effects of drooling severity and cognitive development on the QOL were partialed-out. In conclusion, drooling problems in cerebral palsy children indeed interfering the QOL, and there were negative correlation between drooling and QOL. Although the drooling frequency, gross motor development and language development had more predictive power over the QOL, the effects of drooling severity and cognitive development on the QOL should not be overlooked.